The Case for Offshore Balancing

A Superior U.S. Grand Strategy

For the first time in recent memory, large numbers of Americans are
openly questioning their country’s grand strategy. An April 2016 Pew
poll found that 57 percent of Americans agree that the United States
should “deal with its own problems and let others deal with theirs the
best they can.” On the campaign trail, both the Democrat Bernie Sanders
and the Republican Donald Trump found receptive audiences whenever they
questioned the United States’ penchant for promoting democracy, subsidizing allies’ defense, and intervening militarily—leaving only the likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to defend the status quo.

Americans’
distaste for the prevailing grand strategy should come as no surprise,
given its abysmal record over the past quarter century. In Asia, India,
Pakistan, and North Korea are expanding their nuclear arsenals, and
China is challenging the status quo in regional waters. In Europe, Russia has annexed Crimea,
and U.S. relations with Moscow have sunk to new lows since the Cold
War. U.S. forces are still fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, with no
victory in sight. Despite losing most of its original leaders, al Qaeda
has metastasized across the region. The Arab world has fallen into
turmoil—in good part due to the United States’ decisions to effect
regime change in Iraq and Libya and its modest efforts to do the same in
Syria—and the Islamic State, or ISIS, has emerged out of the chaos.
Repeated U.S. attempts to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace have failed,
leaving a two-state solution further away than ever. Meanwhile,
democracy has been in retreat worldwide, and the United States’ use of
torture, targeted killings, and other morally dubious practices has
tarnished its image as a defender of human rights and international law.